Even Armani, a master of tonal nuance and shape, couldn't improve on nature's divine riff of color and form. “Antigua is quite simply one of the most scenic islands in the Caribbean, with lush areas of countryside juxtaposed against a myriad selection of beaches,” says the designer.

Even Armani, a master of tonal nuance and shape, couldn't improve on nature's divine riff of color and form. “Antigua is quite simply one of the most scenic islands in the Caribbean, with lush areas of countryside juxtaposed against a myriad selection of beaches,” says the designer.

Even Armani, a master of tonal nuance and shape, couldn't improve on nature's divine riff of color and form. “Antigua is quite simply one of the most scenic islands in the Caribbean, with lush areas of countryside juxtaposed against a myriad selection of beaches,” says the designer.

This article originally appeared in the November 2006 issue of Architectural Digest.

Some travelers are simply peripatetic, but Giorgio Armani is, more precisely, a peripatetic of the heliotropic variety: He travels to find places with dependable sun. With seaside houses on the remote Italian island of Pantelleria and a renovated farmhouse on the Tuscan coast—not to mention a superyacht berthed in Saint-Tropez—the couturier has most of his bases in the Mediterranean covered. But even in the Mediterranean the sun is iffy in winter, and then Armani repairs to a retreat on the Caribbean island of Antigua. He has arranged his life so that the sun never really sets on his collection of retreats.

It might seem easier to follow the seasons of the sun in seaside hotels, but Armani prefers to create paradisaical worlds of his own, typified by visual quiet and the agreement of all the parts, from the architecture down to stately little table lamps and watermelon-red napkins. Famous for unstructured tailoring, he designs environments that relax formality in favor of an elegant, easy simplicity. As on the body, so in the house.

Nature was showing off when it created Galley Bay, on the west coast of Antigua, whose rolling hills and craggy promontories rise up from gulfs of turquoise water lined with white beaches. Cloud formations regularly embellish the tableau, reproducing in the sky nebulous versions of the dramatic land formations.

Even Armani, a master of tonal nuance and shape, couldn't improve on nature's divine riff of color and form. “Antigua is quite simply one of the most scenic islands in the Caribbean, with lush areas of country-side juxtaposed against a myriad selection of beaches,” says the designer. “Antiguans are the warmest, most welcoming hosts, who immediately make you feel at home.”

Armani started with a pair of existing villas located on a promontory landscaped with a large tropical garden. When he travels, Armani acts as a paterfamilias, bringing along relatives and friends as houseguests on long sojourns. On Antigua, he needed to expand the villas into a complex that would retain a sense of domestic intimacy without looking like a boutique hotel.

Armani enlarged the compound by a simple process of addition and a deft touch of strategic reorganization. Each of the two structures, Villa Flower and Villa Serena, was designed in Antigua's vernacular style, with peaked, shingled roofs that act as parasols left open at the sides. He expanded the villas, each with several bedrooms, by linking them to satellite pavilions. A large, central living room at the core distributes guests to their respective villas and pavilions like a piazza within the house.

The villas, which overlook Galley Bay, follow the rocky contours down the cliff. Connected by a network of terraces that offer both passage and refuge, the enclave enfolds tropical gardens, swimming pools and a private beach.

The pavilions, which step down the slopes, have verandas that overlook the view and lagoon, and windows throughout have louvers and mosquito netting rather than glass. “I wanted a real feeling of openness to the elements,” Armani explains. Paths wind their way to beaches below the complex. The new village flows on its site as easily and inevitably as water down a hill.

It is not possible to compete successfully with the perfection of this postcard view, and Armani doesn't even try. By instinct, and as an Italian, Armani is a classicist, and in deference to the view, he quiets the interiors with all-natural materials and a palette of muted grays and beiges that avoid contrast in favor of the sense of harmony that he believes is the key to serenity. Floors and walls of the bedrooms and living rooms are clad in tatami, which he brings outside to the loggias. Wood runs through the interiors, and handsome cumaru planks, similar to teak, are used on all the stairs and decking.

Working on the interiors with his Armani Casa Interior Design Studio team, he borrowed heavily from his own line of furniture, Armani Casa. The sofas, chairs, tables and even housewares blend a Japanese sense of simplicity with the feeling of repose often found in the roomy Art Déco furniture by Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, an Armani inspiration.

As in his fashions, where the clothes don't wear the wearer, the furniture doesn't overwhelm the house: “The house must be lived,” he has said. Designing for comfort and informality, Armani simply casts furniture in a supporting role, not as design divas demanding attention. The furniture, even long sofas made to measure, defer to rooms that themselves defer to nature's own masterpiece outside.

“In all of my homes, I am looking to create an ambience of sophisticated comfort that also reflects the spirit of the house's location,” he says. “On the beach in Antigua, my aim has been to create an environment, both outside and inside, which harmonizes my aesthetic with the sensibilities of the West Indies.”

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